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Jigsaw Album Cover Puzzle

Introduction: Jigsaw Album Cover Puzzle

I used to collect vinyl for a while, but now with the music streaming possibilities i hardly play old school records anymore. But one of the beautiful things of records are there covers. So i was looking for a way to re-use the old vinyl cover's and i came up with the idea of creating a jigsaw puzzle out of them.

Step 1: Materials

An album cover 12 inch of your choice

and an extra cover to try on first

spray glue

chipboard 30,5 x 30,5 cm with a thickness of 2 mm

a putty knife (additional)

iron (additional)

a laser cutter (i used the one at my local Fablab - "de Kaasfabriek" in Alkmaar)

a jigsaw puzzle template (i got mine from www.clipart.org)

Step 2: Prepare the Cover.

To test if it was possible to create a jigsaw album cover puzzle i searched in my record collection for an old record that i didn't want to use anymore. The idea is to remove the record and open the cover, glue the chipboard at the inside of the front cover and laser cut a jigsaw pattern thru the front and chipboard and then re-glue the backside.

I found an old cover where most of the existing glue left loose so it was easy to open the cover completely. I used the putty knife for the last sticky parts. If the glue is to strong to open the cover you can also use an iron to soften the glue. If you move an iron for 10 seconds over the glued sides at it's dry silk level the glue softens and it's easy to open without damaging the paper.

Step 3: Apply Chipboard and Cut the Jigsaw Pattern

To give the puzzle some stiffness i needed to add some plate at the inside of the cover. I measured that it was possible to add a 2 mm thick plate inside an album cover. Normally i create my laser cut projects out of 4 mm plywood, but for this job that was to thick. While searching the web i found that a local hobby shop sold 2 mm thick paper/chipboard that also had the exact some dimensions as an 12 inch record (30,5 x 30,5 cm).

Apply spray glue to the chipboard an glue it on the front inside of the open cover. Line the chipboard properly so at the end it's possible to re-close the cover.

Now it's time to move to a laser cutter. I used the BRM at my local FabLab 'de kaasfabriek' in Alkmaar.In this instructable i don't go in to detail about how to create the appropriate file for the laser cutter but on the internet i found a nice vector image of a jigsaw puzzle that measured 7x7 pieces (here: https://openclipart.org/detail/194555/jigsaw-puzzl...). I changed the size of the jigsaw puzzle template to 10.5 x 10.5 inch (27 x 27 cm) so i end up with a border of 3/4 inch (19 mm) that won't be cut.

Place the open folded album cover with the chipboard side faced down on the laser cutter and align the outside contour of the puzzle template so the laser cut's away the middle of the front of the cover.

Step 4: Finish the Cover and Puzzle.

When all the parts are cut, clean all the cutting fumes from the puzzle pieces with a cloth.The final step is to glue the front and the back of the album cover back to each other to create a solid cover. I used the spray glue to apply glue on the inside of the front cover border and then close the cover and leave it to dry for awhile. Please be patience to let the glue dry before start puzzling, otherwise you can glue the puzzle pieces to the backside of the cover.